At Chicago I read again Philip Van Artevelde, and certain passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the deep sound of the lake, as heard in the night.  I used to read a short time at night, and then open the blind to look out.  The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath, pure light, and the deep voice harmonized well with the thought of the Flemish hero.  When will this country have such a man?  It is what she needs; no thin Idealist, no coarse Realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens, while his feet step firmly on the ground, and his hands are strong and dexterous for the use of human implements.  A man religious, virtuous, and—­sagacious; a man of universal sympathies, but self-possessed; a man who knows the region of emotion, though he is not its slave; a man to whom this world is no mere spectacle, or fleeting shadow, not a great, solemn game, to be played with, good heed, for its stakes are of eternal value, yet who, if his own play be true, heeds not what he loses by the falsehood of others;—­a man who hives from the past, yet knows that its honey can but moderately avail him; whose comprehensive eye scans the present, neither infatuated by its golden lures, nor chilled by its many ventures; who possesses prescience, as the wise man must, but not so far as to be driven mad to-day by the gift which discerns to-morrow;—­when there is such a man for America, the thought which urges her on will be expressed.

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Now that I am about to leave Illinois, feelings of regret and admiration come over me, as in parting with a friend whom, we have not had the good sense to prize and study, while hours of association, never perhaps to return, were granted.  I have fixed my attention almost exclusively on the picturesque beauty of this region; it was so new, so inspiring.  But I ought to have been more interested in the housekeeping of this magnificent State, in the education she is giving her children, in their prospects.

Illinois is, at present, a by-word of reproach among the nations, for the careless, prodigal course by which, in early youth, she has endangered her honor.  But you cannot look about you there, without seeing that there are resources abundant to retrieve, and soon to retrieve, far greater errors, if they are only directed with wisdom.

Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor became identical; that the Western man, in that crowded and exciting life which, develops his faculties so fully for to-day, might not forget that better part which could not be taken from him; that the Western woman might take that interest and acquire that light for the education of the children, for which she alone has leisure!